Inmates at the prison called me " Coupon". The press calls me " Coupon Connie"

My high school best friends dad calls me "

Jack of all trades" and " Master of none".One of my ex's husbands calls me "

Lucy

The other calls me " Hillbilly". My traders online call me ," Liar" Cheat" " Crook" An

embarrassment to the coupon and refunding industry. Michele Easter of Refunding

Makes cents thought Counterfeit Connie"was best suited for me in her book Titled "

"Shop like a coupon queen".

In a story written for Southpoint magazine,John Rothschild writes his " Memo to

Hollywood story about me and says " What we have here is equal parts " Diary of a

Mad housewife", Les miserable's,Dragnet, Peewee's big adventure" and Dona Flor and

her two husbands and then suggests I'd be " Big Box-top box office.

The country folk where I live call me "porkacheese". I don't get mad . Thats close

enough to portuguese.

Probably by the time my so called " at one point association with the above mentioned

lovely people ,read this book I will have perhaps just a few more names.

I sure can't stop how people view me or see me so I have

adopted Eminem's view of himself.

" I am whatever you say I am". and " If I wasn't then why would I say I am".

In the papers ,in the news, everyday I am. I don't care I'm just the way I am.

I love Eminem? don't you? He truly is a respected individual, at least by me
.
He has guts!

And another thing, If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't feel very balsy to finally get the

courage to write this book. Thank you Eminem from the bottom of my heart even

though you don't want to be admired.

I am not living in his life. I don't have but one single picture of my favorite artist.

I was so many things to so many interviews and so many people,. About the only person that was sensitive to my situation was Phil Donahue.

I laugh about how " stupid" I was then. I truly didn't even know what Phil was referring to when he said" The prosecutor Steve Sucsi called you " Crass and Commercial". I wish then The American people hadn't viewed me as this " expert" because I really wasn't an expert at anything. In fact I asked a guest on the show what did" crass & commercial"mean right on the air.

THERE I WAS A NAIVE IMMIGRANT FROM PORTUGAL, Stupid to the American ways,laws and with all these diseases I wasn't aware I had. Guts was all I had

My parents lived in a concrete stucco home. We were poor like

everyone else in the little neighborhood we lived in.

Father got paid once a month. There was 6 of us. I have four brothers and 'All start with

the oldest. Aurelio, Fernando, Eduardo, Francisco, Maria and of course me. My Portuguese name is Conceicao.

Rather long names, I know . That's how it is when you're from another country. Besides the point.
My father and Freddie had gone to a festival and won a lamb. When they brought it

home I thought it was a beautiful animal. I wanted to play with him. He was all fluffy

white and so cute. I saw how happy mother had been upon seeing it.
I didn't know she was happy because it was " diner" for us for many months to come
.
When I saw them bring it to the shed it wasn't long before I heard cries" . I didn't

understand what they were doing. Then something in my brain triggered" They were killing it and having a hard time.

I heard cries and cries . I couldn't take it anymore and I put my hands in my ears to

shut out the screams. I remember running to a field of daisies in the woods somewhere

nearby. I felt a sense of relief being there. I stared at the vast field of daisies. It was so

beautiful there. Plain and simple. My eyes became transfixed on the beauty of all the daisies in bloom
.
I felt myself shaking and my head shook in a no motion. It was something I couldn't understand or comprehend. There was some kind of change within me. I felt something strange.

The only comfort I felt was staring at the beauty of the daisies.

I don't know how long I sat in that field for but it was nighttime by the time my brother Aurelio found me.

He yelled and said I was getting a beating. I just stared straight ahead as he dragged me by my little arm home.

Because of a mental block I don't remember much more about what happened that night.

A couple years later I recall the beautiful ducks father had bought for us to play with. It wasn't long before they too wound up in our diner table.
It became imprinted in my mind that if something or someone had to suffer in order for me to eat I wouldn't eat it, especially if it was my play duck.

I became stubborn, cried and opted to starve myself. When i was made to eat my pet I had no choice. It was all we had.
Get what I mean? Just picture a very naive little girl who doesn't really understand why she has to eat her pet duck? Who doesn't even know what the world is all about. It left me scarred for life.

They say the early years, young man or women develop themselves in all ways. I firmly believe now that I was a product of my environment and later in life developed several disorders while also adopting to a new life in America. See, i couldn't adapt very well to a new environment without fixing what allready existed in me. Sickness!
I never told anyone
My parents with help of Senator John Kennedy came to America in 1967
They left five of us in the care of our Grandmother. We hardly knew her but we knew enough to know she didn't like us.

For almost two years. I pretended my parents were still there. During this time I developed " disorders" That I come to know now as " separation anxiety".
Picture an eight year old waking up in the middle of the night crying for her parents and then keeping her fathers coat hanging on her bedroom door just so she could pretend they were still there for almost two years.It was a game I told myself I had to play.
I remember telling my little sister Maria to do the same. "Maria please don't cry , you can pretend with me that Mother and father are still here".